


Mechanics of a Dream

by liadan14



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Explicit Sexual Content, Female Bilbo, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-29
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2017-12-13 08:30:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/822203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liadan14/pseuds/liadan14
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kíli finds a lot more than spiders and lembas bread in Mirkwood's prisons. But while he may know his One at the touch of their hands, not everyone is as lucky. Soulmate AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I blame my own insanity for this. The title is from Noah & the Whale's "Jocasta". Further pairings will be added as it progresses.

Kíli is good at being a dwarf, thanks ever so. He’s lithe, almost unusually so, certainly, but he is young; his hair and beard are short and unhindered by braids and beads because he is a skilled hunter and he’d like to see anyone but the most adept and silent of elves shoot a deer with all sorts of metal bits clanking in their hair when they move. Not to mention, Kíli’s rather a lazy sod when it comes to braiding and nowhere near as vain as his dear brother. As for his bow and arrow, well, long-range weapons are useful. Thorin’s never said a word, and it’s not like Kíli can’t use a sword or anything. 

The fact of the matter is, Kíli is neither the heir nor was he raised in the courts of Erebor. He is unlikely to ever be King – indeed, if a situation arose in which it were demanded of him, he would most like be unable to accept, having lost both Thorin and Fíli – and he likes it that way. Kíli is meant for activity, for hunting and smithing and fighting. No one, not even Balin at his fussiest, has ever claimed that is wrong.

That is not to say Kíli is utterly unacademic, but his interests run more towards the unorthodox. So, at least, say the two or three books of elven lore and custom he keeps under his mattress at home. It is, Kíli argues with himself, a natural interest, developed after the first time or two he was teased for his elf weaponry and heard Thorin’s enraged rants on Thranduil the Reindeer Fucker, who abandoned his friends in their hour of need and ate too much salad.

So Kíli reads. Perhaps part of the reason no one ever saw a need to criticize his habits or his bow was that he is an excellent student, and his interest in learning is genuine. Contrary to most people’s expectations, Balin never grows frustrated, teaching Kíli, except when Kíli won’t cease to ask questions he can’t answer. Fíli, while the naturally level-headed and diplomatic of the two, is also more drawn to swords, both using and making, than to books and history. He’ll make a good king, but a poor scribe. 

His interest in elves was more than simple curiosity, of course, though he keeps it hidden; Thorin is indulgent towards him, which he knows and appreciates, but Kíli is not stupid. Rivendell is a test of his ability to keep his fascination under wraps, though he sneaks off to explore once Fíli is asleep. He pokes around as long as he dares, gasping at the high arches of the library but running back to his room when he hears Thorin and Gandalf approaching. 

It is only in the dungeons in Mirkwood that Kíli’s façade of disinterest and dislike breaks down in the face of none other than Thranduil, though he doesn’t appear to be fucking any reindeer. Thranduil, cold and distant as he is, does not seem to mean any actual harm, and Kíli much prefers the indignities of elvish hospitality to dying horribly in their forest. They are each questioned, one at a time, and though they need little by way of agreement that nothing would be revealed and Kíli has every intention of keeping his word, the experience is far less awful than had been expected.

To be honest, this is probably Kíli’s own doing. The first thing he says, almost as soon as he is brought before Thranduil’s impressive throne, is, “How do you keep your hair so smooth?”

Not exactly a dignified opener. 

Thranduil’s mouth opens in shock, but no answer is forthcoming, so Kíli plows on. “It’s just that all of you have such straight hair! Or crimped, I suppose, but I’ve seen Mother do that with a hot iron. And to keep it braided nonetheless! My hair holds braids ill, and it is meant for them, I do wonder how your kind has learned such skills with it.”

The guards behind Kíli shift, and he blushes hot and red, remembering he is a prisoner, not a schoolboy. 

Then Thranduil begins to laugh. Not a mocking sort of laugh, either, a kind, warm sort of laugh. “My, my,” he says, “and here I thought I would interrogate you!”  
Kíli chuckles, too, ducking his head, still embarrassed.

“Tell me, how old are you?”

“Seventy-four,” Kíli says promptly.

The guard behind him gasps – “Still a child, my liege,” he mutters.

Thranduil shakes his head, blond hair rippling as he moves. “Not to dwarves, though only barely. And am I right, my lad, in thinking that you, too, know nothing of where you are going or why you would go there?”

“Yes, your majesty,” Kíli confirms. After all, Ma had taught him manners, and Thranduil has shown him no cause to abandon them.

Somehow, Thranduil’s smile widens, and what is Uncle Thorin talking about, here is a perfectly decent elf, kind and humorous, if a bit too dignified for Kíli’s taste. 

Not that taste had anything to do with it, he reminds himself hastily. Because these are elves.

Dwarves and elves don’t mix. 

“Legolas,” Thranduil says imperiously. One of the elves behind him steps away from the walls – Kíli had hardly noticed their presence before, intent on the elf-king he’d heard so many stories about, but now he is definitely noticing, because Legolas is absolutely gorgeous. 

“Do take the dwarf and get him cleaned up and fed,” Thranduil tells this Legolas. “He’s too young to be a part of whatever Thorin’s playing at.”

“Thorin,” Kíli gasps, involuntarily, immediately kicking himself for it.

Legolas pauses in his reach for Kíli, and Kíli doubly regrets his indiscretion. He would dearly like to know if elf hands are as soft as they seem. 

“I…sorry,” Kíli mutters, neck flushing even hotter than his cheeks. “Thorin was lost in the forest. We thought him dead.”

“He lives,” Thranduil says, “though he is as ill-tempered and mannered as ever.”

Kíli can’t quite help his smile at that, it does sound like Uncle Thorin. It must sway Thranduil in his favor once more (in truth, it makes him look even younger than his overlarge travelling clothes and unkempt hair already do, and Thranduil has never been cruel to children), because he gestures wordlessly to Legolas, and Kíli is led away.

-

Legolas leads him through a series of leafy courtyards and down comforting stone steps into the steam and heat of what must be a private bathhouse, as it is entirely deserted but for the two of them. He cuts the ropes tying Kíli’s hands together once the door is closed, and Kíli is struck by the glint of candlelight in his smooth hair.

“Are you not afraid I’ll make a break for it?” he asks, flexing his fingers and rubbing them to alleviate the numbness.

Legolas smiles – and Mahal, Kíli always knew he had odd taste, was an odd dwarf, but the way his heart leaps into his throat at the mere sight of Legolas’s smile is a very bad sign. Attraction such as he’s never managed to work up for a dwarf, let alone a dwarf lass, pulses in his veins, and the thought makes him dizzy.

Or maybe it’s the bath oils. Yes. Definitely the bath oils.

“Would you find your way out, then, Master Dwarf? And then back through the forest? Leaving all your company behind?”

“Of course not,” Kíli says amiably. “But you didn’t know that.”

“Certainly I did,” Legolas says. “You are young, but full-grown and certainly not a fool.”

Kíli grins, and thinks of the many times one or another of the elder members of the company have rapped him on the skull and said the exact opposite. “You definitely don’t know that.”

Legolas returns his smile – and Aulë’s great bouncing ballocks, Kíli is in so much trouble – and says, “No one, even a dwarf, with eyes as lively as yours could be a fool.”

Kíli has absolutely no response to that, so he turned, unbuckling the outermost of the belts securing all his travel wear. In truth, his skin was positively itching with weeks worth of dirt and he relished a chance to wash.

“There is no need for modesty, Master Dwarf,” Legolas said, sounding vaguely amused.

Kíli turned again, only to find Legolas leaning coyly against the wall, a pose he’d seen many a barmaid take when she was looking to earn a lot more than tip money.  
“Don’t see you getting undressed,” Kíli mutters. “And I have a name.”

Still, he remains facing Legolas as he sheds first his cloak and then his tunic.

“Aye,” Legolas says. “A name you’ve revealed neither to me nor to my father.”

A good point. “Er,” Kíli says. It seems unutterably stupid to reveal his own name, but he cannot seem to think of another. Admitting his name, he is sure, will give away that he is third-in-line for the Throne of Erebor, if it isn’t covered in dragon shit, and Kíli would quite like to keep the elves thinking he is too naïve to know anything. Using any other dwarvish name off the top of his head is a terrible idea, because he doesn’t know what the other members of the company have called themselves, if anything, and he wants neither to admit his relationships to any of them or accidentally prove them a liar.

“Do not fear me,” Legolas says, clearly seeing the panic in Kíli’s eyes and how he has stopped his undressing midway. “I have little interest in learning your secrets if you don’t want to tell them. Perhaps I can pick a name to call you?”

Kíli lets out a shaky breath. “Yes,” he says, “I believe that would do quite well.” He resumes undressing, only to pause again when realization strikes. “Did you say your father?”

“Yes, I am Thranduil’s son,” Legolas says. “I believe I shall call you Gîl.”

Kíli starts, and is glad he can pass it off as surprise at Legolas’s relation to Thranduil. How on earth the elf came up with something so shockingly similar to Kíli’s name is beyond him.

Legolas’s laugh is, if possible, more compelling than his smile, and Kíli is for the first time truly, completely thankful Fíli is not with him to witness this, because he would never let Kíli forget. “You forget, my dear Gîl, that elves live forever. I may be my father’s heir, but it matters little as he is not like to die.”

“Right,” Kíli said, who knew that full well and rather thought Legolas was a prince in the same manner he himself was one. 

He pulls off his trousers at last – that is, he undoes the laces and they fall to the ground, tattered in multiple places, and, to be honest, a size or two too large for him. Dwarves are not usually as slim as Kíli. Unwilling to be naked long in front of anyone as obviously beautiful as Legolas, Kíli quickly enters the pool, gasping at the sudden warmth that envelops him. Mirkwood is cool, in the slimy shade thrown by the trees, and freezing in the terror it inspires in Kíli’s heart, who has ever been afraid of the dark.

“I will have your clothes cleaned and mended,” Legolas says, after clearing his throat rather suddenly.

“What shall I wear in the meantime?” Kíli asks.

“We’ll find something,” Legolas assures him, before picking up the pile of Kíli’s clothes and dropping them into what must be some sort of laundry chute. He then pulls off his soft leather boots and sits down on the edge of the pool, dangling his legs into the water.

He has very long legs, Kíli notes. Long and slender like the rest of him. 

“D’you shoot?” 

“Excuse me?”

“Bow and arrow, I mean,” Kíli clarifies. “Only, well – “

Legolas lifts a leg out of the water, watches the water drip off it. “The bow, found amidst the other weapons, that was yours, was it not?”

Kíli nods, then ducks his head underwater to clear the dirt and oil from his hair.

Legolas waits patiently for him to resurface, pink-faced and dripping. “It is a fine piece of craftsmanship,” he says. “Fit for a master.”

When Kíli refrains from responding, Legolas continues. “Are you one?”

“Hm?”

“A master bowman.”

Normally, Kíli would shrink from this, but he is quite short enough as is. “Near enough for my own people, I suppose, though I doubt I would be such to yours.”

“You shall have to let me be the judge of that,” Legolas says, a tad snootily if Kíli does say so himself. “Now, are you ready to emerge?”

Kíli sinks under the surface of the hot water once more, scrubbing at the worst of the dirt on his feet and legs, behind his ears. He forgot, for a moment there, that he was still a prisoner, kind treatment or not. At home, he may lollygag in the hot springs till Fíli grows miserable and pruney; here he is on someone else’s timetable. 

When he emerges, he says, “You forget, highness, that I still have no clothes to wear.”

Legolas shrugs, the motion appearing somehow sinuous and fluid on his frame, as if his muscles and bones were mere shadows beneath his skin. “I can’t say I mind. I’ve half a mind to keep you naked.”

Kíli thinks his ears must have been somehow elfified, because that sounds nonsensical. “Excuse me?”

Legolas smiles, now every inch predator. “I jest, Gîl, though you are passing fair for a dwarf, and I’d certainly not complain of your company with or without clothes. However, despite what you may have heard, we elves would never treat anyone under our hospitality so ill as to force them to go without clothes.”

Kíli laughs, a little unsteady. A little too interested. “My thanks for the compliment, your highness, and rest assured that you are more than passing fair yourself, to dwarf or elf, I’d imagine.”

Legolas offers his hand to Kíli as he climbs out of the pool, and the first touch of skin-to-skin sends what feels like a shock of ice cold fire running through Kíli. No, he thinks, nononono, but he can’t help himself looking up to meet Legolas’ gaze. His eyes – blue, bright, shining – are dark in the light of the cave, reflecting the low lantern light back at Kíli, wide and surprised and mirroring Kíli’s own shock.

“That,” he says, “is very inconvenient.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kíli and Legolas should probably do more talking than they actually do

Kíli is brought back to his cell after a meal of elf food – mostly bread and leaves, but he’s honestly too occupied thinking about the fact that Thranduil’s son is his…well. Legolas called him _fae mellon_ , the friend of his spirit or some other such hogwash. Kíli knows what he is. He is Legolas’s One, and Legolas is his. And Mahal’s blessing is a blessing, obviously. But this is the worst time, and the worst place, and the worst person and Kíli just can’t stop thinking about his godforsaken hair glinting when a speck of sunlight slants through the tree cover of Mirkwood. 

He sits in his cell and stews about it, for twelve hours. That is the length of time between when the guard waiting for them outside the baths put him in an elven tunic that falls to Kíli’s mid-calf, even with a belt, stuck a bowl of elven food in his hands and locked him back up, and Legolas coming down to the cells to speak with him. During that time, Kíli goes over every moment he spent with Legolas, but he keeps backing himself into the same corner of the depth of the shock that ran through his whole body when their hands touched, the playful tilt of his grin when he told Kíli he was “passing fair”. He wishes, more than anything, that Fíli were with him, that they could talk to each other somehow. That he could tell his brother he found his One and that he is so horribly light and puffed full of air but the royal cuffs on his ankles are dragging him down to the floor of his cell.

Legolas comes in the darkest hour of the night. Kíli only knows because the candles in his cell are put out with the sunset, which is good, because sleeping is pretty much all there is to do, trapped and alone.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner,” he says, crouching down before the cell.

“I,” Kíli says, and then stops. In all his thoughts, he never considered what he would actually say to Legolas. Instead he stares. “Uh. Well. Fuck.”

Legolas’s mouth twitches once, then twice, and then they both start laughing. A little bit of the weight on Kíli’s chest lifts.

“Gîl,” Legolas says, softly, once he’s done laughing. “I wish you could tell me your real name.”

Kíli laughs once more, though bitterly. “I wish the same. I wish this were a joyous moment, for us both.”

Legolas’s long, slender hand reaches through the bars and clasps Kíli’s. “It is, Gîl. For me, it is.”

The touch of skin on skin sooths Kíli’s fear even as it ignites the fire in his bones, so fierce he nearly shakes with it. “Mahal,” he gasps. “You are dangerous, highness.”

“Please,” Legolas says, sounding just as shaken. “Please call me Legolas.

“ _Legolas,_ ” Kíli hisses out through his teeth, and he _feels_ Legolas shudder.

He groans, the warmth of the air leaving his lungs puffing against Kíli’s face.

Kíli leans his forehead against the bars. He can’t think straight. He hasn’t since he first set eyes on Legolas, and he needs to rub his whole body all over the elf yesterday and he can’t. “I want you so much,” he says against the muffle of the bars.

In the next instant, Legolas is standing, whispering harsh words in the dark that sounded not quite like the fluidity of the elvish tongue but still foreign to Kíli’s ears. “We don’t have long,” he says, wrenching the door open and pulling Kíli to his feet. “This may be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”

He pulls Kíli down the dark halls and corridors of the elvish stronghold, and if Kíli were not captive to the strings of his heart pulled tight to Legolas’s and the fire stoked deep in his belly just as much as he is to Thranduil’s prison, he might try to remember the way out of the dungeon. But he doesn’t. He’s a bad prince and a bad warrior.

A wooden door clicks shut behind him, and as he finds himself pressed up against it, Kíli does not have it in himself to care. “We don’t have long,” Legolas says. “No one can know.”

Kíli would answer, but his mouth has already found Legolas’s neck and he is entirely disinclined to stop laying small, soft kisses at the juncture between neck and shoulder. Legolas moans.

And then he grabs Kíli by the hair, pulls him back and crashes their mouths together.

Kíli hasn’t had many first kisses. Three to be exact, and not a one meant anything beyond adolescent exploration and a bit of fun; they were sloppy and enthusiastic and never touched his heart.

This kiss is disastrous. It’s nothing like Fíli’s first kiss, either – awkward, short and chaste, but he was so excited he couldn’t sleep all night and told Kíli all about it, twice. Then, Fíli hasn’t found his One, and his first kiss was with a shopkeeper’s daughter in Ered Luin.

Still, it was a romantic moment. Kíli’s never had much patience for romance; he’s too young, he supposes, and his heart is stirred by the reality of his love for his family, not the dream of some distant future madness. Until now, that is. If the touch of their hands set Kíli’s blood boiling, the touch of their lips makes it sing. Legolas’s mouth is soft over his, none of the push their bodies are screaming for, soft and wide and just open enough to catch his lower lip between Legolas’s. Kíli’s hand climbs to the base of Legolas’s skull to card through his silkspun hair, exactly as soft as it looked, and he relishes the way it drags against the callouses.

He pulls away for a split second, just to see Legolas’s eyes, and then dives back in again, this time licking at Legolas’s mouth. Legolas’s hand, the one not still tugging at Kíli’s hair in a way he likes far too much, settles around Kíli’s waist.

“I want to do right by you,” Legolas says, low, harsh. “I want to know all about you, I want to _love_ you but there’s no time and –“

“And I want the same but I’ve never needed anything as much as I need you now,” Kíli answers, all in one breath.

Legolas pulls back, about a half a step, stares a Kíli, flush all the way up to his cheekbones. Then he picks Kíli up by the thighs, the borrowed tunic rucking up to Kíli’s waist. “You will have me,” he says, barely a whisper against Kíli’s lips before they’re kissing again. Kíli’s eyes are closed, but he feels the vertigo whoosh of air around him as he’s carried to Legolas’s bed. His back hits the covers as Legolas’s hands reach for his belt, pulling and tugging till it comes loose. Kíli’s hands feel almost like lead, but he lifts them all the same to pull at the bindings of Legolas’s clothes. Eventually, they both achieve nakedness – time is of the essence, after all, regardless of how desperately badly Kíli wants to see him naked.

Legolas is a glory naked. He’s all slim muscle and sinuous pale gold skin. Kíli knows, because Legolas is standing as he pulls his tunic over his head and remains, pale and perfect, in the candlelight.

“Come here,” Kíli growls.

Legolas pounces, slotting himself between Kíli’s knees as they kiss again. “Have you…before?” he asks between kisses, his hands reaching for Kíli’s nipples, touching and flicking. Kíli lets out a shuddering breath, more because he wants Legolas to know he’s enjoying this than because it does anything in particular for him.

He’s rather busy with Legolas’s fine, pale neck, attaching himself to it and licking, nipping. He supposes elves are more calm about these things, eternal as they are, but he’s fighting a strong and strongly dwarven urge to mark what’s his.

Then, Kíli thinks as Legolas suckles a mark into the skin below his collarbone, where it will be hidden but there nonetheless, maybe elves aren’t that calm.

“Gîl,’ Legolas says sharply.

“Huh?”

“ _Have you_?”

Kíli tries to remember the question Legolas didn’t quite ask. “Oh. I. Well. I’ve never, ah, received.”

“Would you like to?” The words are spoken against the most sensitive part of Kíli’s neck, and his shudder this time is entirely involuntary.

“ _Please,_ ” Kíli says, unable to keep his mouth from the tip of Legolas’s ear.

The noise Legolas lets out makes Kíli smirk.

“Imp,” Legolas says, mock-accusingly, one long arm reaching for a drawer by his bed. He keeps it so close – and it’s half empty, and Kíli suddenly remembers the rows of tall, gorgeous, intelligent elves, and that Legolas is a prince who actually has a kingdom and has his pick among them.

He swallows dryly, says, “You do this a lot, then?”

Legolas pauses in his quest to open the half-empty vial of oil. Kíli’s hungry body cries out against this. His heartbeat calms, though, as Legolas cups his cheek and rests their foreheads together.

“Do you want this?” He asks.

“Of course!” Kíli says. “I…I suppose I’m just. Scared.”

Legolas presses his mouth softly to Kíli’s cheeks, to his jaw and chin. “My Gîl. I would not have you fear me.”

Kíli chuckles as his hands glide through Legolas’s hair once more. “It’s not that I fear you, it’s that…you’re so, so beautiful, my One, and you have lived so much longer than I, and I don’t want you tied to, well, me, just because we have no choice in the matter. I don’t…I want to _like_ you, not need you as I do now.”

Kíli has hardly finished speaking before Legolas is kissing the living daylights out of him until he’s gasping into Legolas’s mouth and tightening his legs around his elf once more.

“ _Fae mellon_ ,” Legolas says, whispers. “My people lead long, long lives. I’ve seen many elves, and if you need know, some I have shared more than meals with, yes, but no one has been more lovely to me than you. Even before I knew what you were to me, my…One, you call it?”

“Mm,” Kíli mumbles against Legolas’s lips, content to just hear Legolas praise his beauty.

Legolas laughs a little, then settles more comfortably against him. “Gîl, I cannot promise you an easy journey, nor a wholly pleasant one, but friend of my soul or no, I would be with you as long as I can.”

It’s Kíli’s turn to kiss him for his pretty words, for his pretty smile and honest faith. “Sorry,” he mumbles as they pull apart.

“Never apologize for honesty,” Legolas says.

They kiss for a long while, the constricting pressure around Kíli’s chest lightened as he reaches for the oil and presses it into Legolas’s hand.

“You’re sure?”

Kíli answers by hitching his legs up even further around Legolas, his knees now near his ears.

Legolas spills the oil.

Kíli’s rather proud of himself.

As for the act itself, well. They’ve wasted much of their time on talk and kissing, and Kíli’s no stranger to the feel of fingers inside him. Of course, they were his own, shorter and wider. Legolas’s slide in with less resistance, and reach deeper. There was that spot – the spot that made that fellow in Bofur’s favorite tavern gurgle oddly – that Kíli could never reach on himself, but Legolas _definitely_ can. It almost hurts, how sensitive the nerves there are. Kíli’s been going back and forth between interested half-hardness and stone-chisel painful ever since Legolas first came to his cell, and he’s more than ready now.

Legolas must be feeling similarly, because as careful as he is to be thorough, the preparation is over fast, and then he is sliding in ever so slowly.

His cock is much like the rest of him, long and slim. It has a little lilt to the left, and the elves keep their strange custom of removing the skin around the head so it stands proud and purple, without protection. Kíli’s breath is punched out of him as all of Legolas enters him. He doesn’t know how to be loud between the sheets, too used to stifling himself in the room he shares with his brother when he just can’t not touch his own cock (thicker, shorter, more like a dwarf’s).

Legolas, it seems, is much the same, all soft breaths and words that never seem to exit his lips. He hitches Kíli’s legs to settle at his waist, ankles crossed over his back, hitting just the right spot as he moves.

It feels good. It is excellent, truly; Kíli knows he will not come from this alone, but he couldn’t care less with Legolas pressing so close to him everywhere and the strange-sharp-tight-good feelings from where he is being pounded.

A part of him wishes he could reach his cock, just stroke it a few times, but Legolas is half atop him, pressing him down, and he is moving fast now, hard and sharp _right there_ , so all is well. He cards through Legolas’s hair once more, thumbing at the tips of his ears and relishing the gasp it earns him.

It goes quite a while, Legolas suckling marks to his chest and alternating between easy rolling of his hips and hard and sharp thrusts. Kíli’s legs grow weary, but his arms are happy to hold Legolas even as he cannot get enough air into his lungs from the frantic rhythm and the weight of elf atop him.

He clenches down, just to see what will happen, and Legolas gasps “fuck”, before he stills, mouth open by Kíli’s ear, and he must be coming. He thrusts a few more times, slower now and sticky, until he slows and pulls out.

He doesn’t make it far, collapses against Kíli’s shoulder, on top of one of Kíli’s legs, pressing it into the covers. Kíli doesn’t care, reaches down to his cock, actually shaking with how badly he needs to come _right now._

But Legolas’s hand makes it there first, grasping him and stroking just off-rhythm, thumbing the sensitive head just a bit too hard and Kíli doesn’t know what to do with himself, his hips trying to bow off the bed for more, or less, or something, but he can’t because Legolas is still lying on top of him.

Would it be dreadfully impolite to bat Legolas’s hand away and just finish himself off?

“Ah!” he gasps as Legolas hits the head too hard again and his nerves cringe, and his hand settles over Legolas’s before he can stop it, guiding till the speed is right and maybe, maybe he can come now, he needs it so badly.

Only then, Legolas at last emerges from his post-orgasmic stupor and realizes Kíli’s desperation, realizes his need, and damn him for a tease, stops all movement to climb-

Oh.

Well.

Alright then, Kíli can be satisfied with that, he thinks, as Legolas leans over his painfully erect cock and takes it into his mouth almost lazily, tonguing at the underside, inside the foreskin.

Kíli absolutely cannot watch this happening. He also can’t hold his head up any longer, so he leans back against the pillows while Legolas swallows him down, sucking hard sometimes and teasing others and Kíli needs to come right now why the fuck hasn’t he come yet.

His answer is granted when Legolas’s fingers slide inside him again – where he is full of come, oh Mahal why did he even bother taking a bath what if people can smell it on him? – and crook against that spot just as he sucks hard at the head of Kíli’s cock.

Kíli groans as he comes, and comes and comes, shivering against the bed.

“So good,” he croaks when Legolas emerges from between his legs. “So good.”

“I live to serve,” Legolas says with a smirk, lying down beside Kíli once more.

Kíli curls towards him, and finds himself wrapped in long arms, archer’s arms like his own. He is warm and tired and a little restless, in the base of his skull, but that can wait for when they grow tired of kissing and petting at each other with orgasm-numb hands.

“Can’t believe I get to have you,” he mumbles, that or something else truly very silly.

It’s alright, though, because Legolas’s answer is suspiciously incoherent, “whenever you want, all mine.”

They lie in the flickering candlelight, side by side, breathing slightly out-of-sync, until first light fingers at the leaves of Mirkwood’s most eastern tree.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here my little contribution to the explicit rating of this story; it'll probably be a while before another scene like this arises. I'm hoping to keep a reasonably steady pace with the writing but I can't guarantee anything, so I may just have to be annoyingly inconsistent with updates...hope you enjoy anyway!


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five conversations held in captivity

**Five Conversations Held in Captivity**

_One_

“Do you have a brother?”

“Yes.”

“Is he blond? With a moustache?”

“He is. Why do you ask?”

“Because he’s been asking after you.”

Kíli’s heart jumps. The idiot. “Is he well?”

“Aside from his worry for you, yes. Hasn’t told us a thing.”

Kíli snorts. Except that he has a brother. Dwarven birthrates being as they are, it would be a small matter for a half-decent elvish spy to figure out which family exactly was the only one to have two children within five years of each other. Fíli would never be a spy; he sees the good sides of the world, not the complexities.

“Do you have siblings?” he asks Legolas.

Legolas shakes his head; a sole heir to the throne after all then. Certainly Thranduil was unlikely to die, given his reluctance to enter battle, but one day he would set sail nonetheless.

“Are you close to you brother?”

“Very.” Kíli’s voice breaks; he can’t help it. Legolas reaches through the bars to link their fingers. “I thought it would be him first,” he admits. “He’s so…. _ready._ ” For commitment, for being Thorin’s heir, and then there was Kíli the fuck-up always getting them in situations he couldn’t get them out of.

“I don’t think the bond seeks out those who are ready,” Legolas says, a bit drolly.

Kíli sighs. “I’m sure you’ve seen this happen a hundred times and I’m just overreacting, but…” he doesn’t really know how to finish. But, he’s too hot and itchy with boredom, sitting in this cell for days and days, stifling in inactivity? But, he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he will get them both into more trouble than either of them know what do with? But, he’s only seventy-four years old and he wants his mother?

Legolas’s fingers stroke at his knuckles. Kíli huffs out a sigh against the bars, and Legolas smiles at the warmth against his own lips.

-

  _Two_

“I keep thinking about you,” Kíli says, lips pressed uncomfortably against one of the bars because it is easier to speak against the metal than to Legolas directly.

“As do I,” Legolas says, sitting, leaning against the wall, the river of starlight he calls hair tossed over one of his shoulders. “I wish I knew more about you.”

Kíli clears his throat uncomfortably. “No,” he says, “well, yes, I mean that too, but…that is…” he sighs, and presses his forehead fully against the bars. “I can’t stop thinking about how you felt inside me.”

It’s utterly true. He dreamt about it last night, awoke uncomfortably aroused, which is even less fun when you wake up alone in a prison cell, and every now and again his mind will flash back to Legolas above him, kissing him, Legolas’s mouth around his cock, Legolas coming, the way his lithe torso felt between Kíli’s legs.

Legolas’s head hits the stone wall with a dull thunk. “Yes,” he agrees, though he sounds strained. Inasmuch as an elf can sound strained. “I wish we could risk it again. I wish…”

“What do you wish?”

Legolas reaches through the bars to tangle their fingers together. “I wish we’d had time to try it the other way ‘round. I wish you could have fucked me. I wish…”

Kíli can’t exactly help the low moan that escapes his throat; the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind what with Legolas being as tall as he is, but now it has it’s doing a whole lot of crossing, to and fro, the image of Legolas’s long pale legs spread for Kíli, his eyes closed and his mouth open, whispering Kíli’s name.

“I wish I’d gotten to suck you, too,” Kíli says, “and…Mahal, maybe I’d’ve opened you up on my fingers when I had you in my mouth, have you on your back with your legs wide open pushing back for my fingers and up for my mouth…”

He maybe loses himself in the fantasy for a hot moment, because when he looks over to Legolas, his eyes have gone wide and predatory and his hips are shifting an obvious bulge at the front of his trousers.

“Would’ve felt so good,” he says. “I’ve thought about it, nearly used up the oil in my bedroom on myself just thinking of you.”

Kíli’s breath is coming in hot pants, now, and he is suddenly aware that his cock is throbbing with his heartbeat. “You have no idea how badly I want to see that,” he says.

“Oh, I think I do,” Legolas says, dark. There’s a twist to his voice, and Kíli knows it’s anger at their situation, at the complexities, the politics, at Thranduil, and if Kíli can spare that anger he will.

“Show me,” he says.

“What?”

“I can see you, love,” he says. “You could bludgeon a warg with what’s in your trousers right now.  Get it out for me.”

Stifling what Kíli strongly suspects is a giggle, Legolas does as he’s told, reaching beneath his waistband to draw out his cock. Kíli’s mouth waters.

“You too,” Legolas says. They can barely speak above a whisper for fear of alerting any of the other guards to Legolas’s massive desertion of his duties, but to Kíli the words ring as loud as if they were alone in a vast, echoing hall and Legolas had just yelled in his ear.

He scrabbles at the laces on his clothes – still borrowed elvish ones, no one has seen fit to return Kíli’s own things – and in scant moments has pulled them down far enough to have a firm grip on his own anvil.

“Show me how you like it,” Legolas murmurs, steadily, slowly fisting his…well, Kíli supposes dwarven euphemisms are ill at place for elvish genitalia, and truth be told he can hardly imagine Legolas’s prick doing anyone favors in a forge. He’s fisting it nonetheless, flushed deep rosy pink – not as violently purple as Kíli’s own gets, he notes, and as it’s slenderer the heft of it seems more graceful and less heavy even as it bobs in and out of Legolas’s hand.

“I like it slow to start,” Kíli says, and then wishes he hadn’t, because while it’s true right now he is dying for hard and fast. But he will not make a liar of himself, so he draws two fingers up from the base slowly to toy with his foreskin, before loosely grasping it and, agonizingly slowly, beginning to pump.

Legolas makes a hum, maybe of agreement, maybe of interest. “I like to make myself wait,” he says. His voice gets deeper when he’s aroused, and less melodious. “Yesterday, I had been thinking of you for so long, I was so ready to be touched…”

He trails off, distracted by his own hand. Kíli can’t stop himself from bucking up into his hand at the thought of Legolas, hard beneath his court garb, waiting for the day to end. “And then?”

“And then I lay down on my bed and imagined you were there, touching me, until I couldn’t stand it,” Legolas says, his fist flying over his cock. “I put my fingers in myself, teased myself as long as I could stand.”

Kíli can hardly move his own hand anymore, he’s so transfixed at the sight of Legolas. He’s already wet, fluid pooling at the tip of his member, dripping down the sides. “And when you couldn’t stand it?” he goads.

“I…” Legolas can’t get the words out anymore, clearly, huffing out low moans instead. It’s alright, though, Kíli has an excellent mental picture of Legolas writhing on his bed, unable to stop himself any longer, grabbing for his cock and bringing himself off in just a few strokes.

And speaking of excellent ideas, Kíli shifts to his knees, reaches through the bars and wraps his own hand over Legolas’s.

A hand which Legolas immediately pulls away to stuff in his own mouth, blocking a scream Kíli would love to hear. He pulls out all his tricks, tempting fate and the Elven guard just to hear what sounds he can pull out from around Legolas’s fist. He does that twist at the top that always gets him off, draws his fingers down the side and then closes his hand tightly around Legolas’s lovely prick and just goes to town.

Of course it’s awkward, what with the angle and the bars in the way, but Legolas hardly seems to care. He likes it rough, Kíli already knew that much, both from the way he touched Kíli’s own cock and from the way he was fisting himself. It’s not a stretch to guess he likes it to hurt a little, likes the burn of a palm against the oversensitive head.

He’s barely exhausted his little catalog of masturbation tricks when the third twist of Kíli’s fingers against the smooth head of Legolas’s cock proves to much and Legolas comes, heavy, over Kíli’s hand and his own stomach.

Unlike the last time, it hardly takes more than half a second after his orgasm ends for Legolas to be groping for Kíli through the bars, his arm slender enough to be more dexterous than Kíli’s own was, and he must have been paying attention, because he’s gentler this time, getting the pressure right on the first go and clearly fighting to replicate the twist at the head of Kíli’s cock.

Kíli is thankful, really, he is, but at this point in time it wouldn’t matter who was touching him how because it barely takes a minute for him to double over, still on his knees, spurting hot into Legolas’s fist, keening as quietly as he is able.

Legolas draws his hand back through the bars and slowly, painfully, raises his hand to his lips to lick Kíli’s come off it.

Kíli groans.

-

  _Three_

“If I were an elf,” Kíli begins, shuddering at the mere thought of being so far away from the ground, “what would I do?”

“Be rather cross, I imagine,” Legolas says drolly.

“Idiot,” Kíli says fondly. He’s braiding the section of Legolas’s hair he can reach through the bars, dwarvish style, like he always does for Fíli – the two little braids at the temple, a Durin family trademark. “I mean, how would I go about winning you over if I were an elf? How do elves court?”

Legolas sighs, plucking at a loose thread on his trousers idly. “It depends. Most times, when we recognize an attraction, or a…connection, we simply seek each other out, spend more time together to see if it is returned. Elves do not take bodily intimacy all that seriously.”

“Neither do dwarves,” Kíli agrees. “But…well. Other times…”

“Other times,” Legolas repeats. “Other times you meet your One.” He clears his throat. “Usually there are some formalities, a declaration of intent in one way or other. It depends on whether either of the elves in question are involved with anyone yet. But…well, elves live a long time, and…you only have one _fae mellon,_ and you only meet them once.”

Kíli ties off the first braid with a metal bead that had been hidden in the thick hair at the base of his own skull. He makes a low encouraging noise, wanting to hear more, and keep Legolas distracted as he turns around and lets Kíli braid the other side.

“I suppose we elves celebrate the urgency, as we experience it so seldom in our lives,” Legolas says. “There are bonding rituals, proposals, engagement ceremonies and handfastings…usually they all happen in the space of a month or two, though it’s been known to take years.”

“Usually the couple probably doesn’t just fuck right away,” Kíli interprets. “Usually there’s a lot of romance and handholding and chaperoning because it’s not like it is with a partner who isn’t your One, it has to be right because it’s the only time it will ever happen.”

The tension drains out of Legolas. He leans into Kíli’s fingers in his hair. “We went about it all backwards, didn’t we, Gîl?”

Closing off the second braid with the other bead, leaving only two hidden under the rest of his hair, Kíli grabs one of Legolas’s hands to drag it through the bars and press a kiss to it. “Wouldn’t change it for all the gold in Erebor,” he says.

Legolas smiles, a real smile, not like how other elves smile at him, but one with dimples. Kíli wishes he could kiss them, but he settles for running a finger down Legolas’s smooth, lovely cheeks.

(He is silently, shamefully grateful, both that Legolas has no beard, and that he will not care if Kíli never grows one.)

“So tell me,” Legolas says, nipping at the finger on his cheek, “how does a dwarven courtship start?”

“Well,” Kíli says. “I would ask to braid your hair.”

-

  _Four_

It’s dark.

It’s so dark, it’s always so dark, and there are legs crawling up his arms, down his back, nesting in his spine and he hateshateshates the cold and the shivers and the numb and

“Gîl.”

Kíli gasps in the dark, in the cold, blind and scared.

“It’s me, it’s me, come on, come back to me.”

His eyes blink open to Legolas’s worried face through the bars of his cell. He’s cold with sweat and trembling.

“Gîl,” Legolas says, voice still low and soothing. “My love, come here.”

“Kíli,” Kíli says, stumbling to the bars till he can blindly reach through them the grab for Legolas’s hands, and how he wishes no one had noticed the keys going missing for four hours the last time, so Legolas could swipe them again, could open the door and hold Kíli, just for a second.

“What?”

“My name,” Kíli says. “My name’s Kíli. Please, _khathuzhel._ ”

“Kíli,” Legolas says, and oh, on his lips it sounds so right, no wonder Legolas went crazy when Kíli first said his name. “Kíli, it was just a dream.”

“Yes,” Kíli says. “A dream.” He’s still shaking, though Legolas is holding his hands tightly.

“If I could, I’d burn every spider in this forest,” Legolas says, and his voice is quiet but his face is deadly earnest.

Kíli smiles. “Hush love,” he says. “I won’t sleep well at night ‘till I can have you beside me anyhow.”

“Nor I.”

-

  _Five_

“I may vanish,” Kíli says.

Legolas makes an inquisitive noise, toying with the braid Kíli just redid. It does things to him, that Legolas is wearing his courting beads, willingly, happily.

“Don’t want you getting in trouble,” Kíli says, “but there may or may not be a mass breakout from this prison, and it may or may not happen very soon.”

Legolas is oddly quiet for a while, before drawing a chain from around his neck over his head and pressing it into Kíli’s hands. A stylized silver ivy leaf rests at the end of the chain, and Kíli gasps a little at the workmanship.

“I would have you wear this for me,” he says, almost shy.

“Always,” Kíli says, pulling the chain over his own head.

They kiss through the bars, awkward and a little messy, and Kíli will miss him so much.

“I will find you again,” he says, almost a warning.

“Not if I find you first,” Legolas says. He smiles, and Kíli does his best to memorize the way his eyes crinkle with it for fear he won't see it for far too long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, apologies for the incredibly slow updating. I will try to be quicker from here on out, I promise. This is slightly hindered by me not having really decided what the other pairings of this fic are or found a good place to slot in some exposition on the whole soulmate thing, but I think I thought of a partial solution to both those problems.
> 
> Anyhow. Legolas is a very bad guard, gotta say. Khathuzel, what Kíli calls him in the fourth part, means elf of all elves in neo-Khuzdul. I really love that -el suffix, it's so much fun. Still not over the fact that there is actually a word for "cough of all coughs". Guessing that when dwarves get sick they are big drama queens about it.
> 
> Also, fun fact: in my headcanon for this fic, people call Dwalin "mazrel" behind his back, which means "fist of all fists".


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kíli pines and Fíli has some fun

Kíli keeps the glint of Legolas’s necklace hidden carefully under his shirt. There is a time for such announcements, and now is not it. Besides, Kíli is aware he is hardly as princely as Thorin envisions his heirs and he is hesitant to put more fuel on the fire.

Not that he can help this, of course. If it were possible to choose a One love, history would be a less embattled field. Kíli can’t entirely recall another story in which a dwarf and an elf were destined for one another, but that is irrelevant. It is the way it is.

What doesn’t surprise him in the least is the way it took him. Dís always used to say he would know immediately or not at all when he met his One. After all, it does happen that way for many dwarves, the instantaneous touch-and-you-know-it connection.

Not for all of them, certainly; Kíli has seen the slow build of a developing bond over years at a time before it snaps into place, and he doubts Fíli will be like him when he does meet his One. Fíli is too measured, too thoughtful.

So Kíli keeps the necklace hidden. Now is not the time, after all, and he may be reckless and sentimental, but not so much that he can’t just take the necklace off and hide it under his pillow in Laketown when he goes to join the others in the steam baths. Perhaps he’s quieter than usual, perhaps he spends a few too many moments staring out the window towards Mirkwood. But he says nothing, and does nothing.

Despite the itch in his feet towards the forest. 

Despite the pull in his chest towards his One.

Despite the hot fevered dreams of Legolas in the moonlight that haunt him every night.

Perhaps it is not surprising that the others do notice, despite Kíli’s care to hide his feelings. Fíli is the first to speak, of course. They have always been closer than most siblings, in age and otherwise. They even out each other’s imbalances – Fíli solid, Kíli flighty and casual; Fíli placid and Kíli curious.

It is not surprising Fíli lacks imagination.

“Is it the spiders?” He asks.

“What?” Kíli says. He can’t quite bring himself to turn away from the window fast enough to seem as if he’s actually listening.

“You’ve been a little off, brother dear. Quiet. It’s not like you.”

“Oh.” Kíli runs a hand through his hair, loose and unbraided as it is currently. “I…do you really think me so weak, brother, that it would be the spiders, and not the wargs and the goblins and the orcs?”

Fíli sits down beside him on the rich, soft thickness of the Laketown beds (and my, wouldn’t it be lovely to have Legolas here, on the smooth sheets, though not as smooth as his skin).

“It’s not a weakness to be scared, Kí. Mahal knows we’ve seen things dwarrows twice our age would be frightened of.”

Kíli sighs. “Yes, yes, I’m scared. I have dreams, and I don’t mind. Dreaming’s one thing. It’s the future I don’t like to think of.”

Fíli says nothing, waiting.

“We’ve seen so much, and we’ve the mountain yet to come. There is so much I haven’t done…I wish…”

It may not the precise truth, but Fíli’s hand on his shoulder is some consolation. 

“I know,” Fíli says. “I’ve thought…well, I’ve often wondered if Ma wasn’t right to try and keep us home. We’re awful young for adventures, and much too pretty to die.”

Kíli laughs, shoving Fíli away. “Idiot,” he says fondly.

“You’re one to talk,” Fíli returns. “Now come on, we’ve all of Laketown clamoring to buy us a drink and I intend to take advantage.”

Kíli acknowledges he’s a little blind with longing, but he’s not totally immune to the revelries of Laketown. The company goes to a tavern and the ale is good company even in his loneliness. Besides, watching the others get drunk is half the fun. Bofur is a hilarious drunk, riling up half the tavern with his stories and songs before finally settling down beside Fíli and giving him a few more private stories.

This is not something Kíli is wildly keen on listening in to – Bofur’s been making eyes at his brother for quite some time, and he knows Fíli’s not averse. Actually, Kíli thinks they’ll make rather a sweet pair, but he really has no desire to watch his brother be seduced. Nor does he particularly need to see his uncle, or Balin and Dwalin, blind drunk, for that matter. Watching them get there is good fun, but Kíli rather fears he’ll be a morbid drunk tonight.

Thankfully, none of the dwarves are terribly observant when drunk. Actually, most of them aren’t terribly observant when sober either, and Bilbo, quite likely the cleverest of them all, is still laid up with a head cold, unable to ask intrusive questions, such as why Kíli chooses to slip off as soon as he thinks he won’t be noticed.

Lucky for him, he is not, in fact, noticed. Fíli is deeply, deeply distracted, not because he’s listening to the story Bofur’s telling but because he’s wondering how he can convince Bofur to stop talking and just kiss him already.

Unbeknownst to Kíli, he made an excellent point about not losing time.

“Come outside with me,” Fîli blurts out, then blushes heavily.

Bofur grins, dimpling adorably, and is up and headed for the door before Fíli can even regret asking. A quick glance around reveals Gloin’s nose buried in his cup as he seeks out the last of his ale, Thorin and Dwalin in deep conversation, clearly not attentive to the world around them. Oin and Bombur have slumped over the table, clearly asleep. Dori is listening attentively to some story Balin’s been telling for at least a century, and Ori and Nori are watching gleefully. No one sees Fíli follow Bofur out the door, or if they do, they certainly do not care.

And as the door closes behind Fíli, Bofur pulls him by the arm into a shady alley, away from the lit up window of the tavern. In the half shadow, Fíli’s back thumps softly against the wall and Bofur crowds into his space, breathless and smiling. His blunt fingers pet Fíli’s hair to rest behind his ears.

Fíli’s hand catch at the lapels of Bofur’s vest as he drags him closer, and they’re both smiling too widely as they kiss. Bofur’s moustache tickles Fíli’s cheeks; Fíli’s beads are cold against Bofur’s neck, and he shivers.

The humor drains from the situation for them both at that. When they pull apart, Bofur’s eyes are wide and dark. Fîli’s cheeks are flushed pink beneath his beard, his mouth still open, and he has never looked more desirable or more youthful to Bofur.

“My prince,” Bofur says.

Fíli allows his fingers to trace a line up Bofur’s neck, follows it with his mouth, trailing gentle kisses up behind his ear. “If it’s all the same,” he says, hushed and wicked, “when we’re like this, I would be just yours and leave the prince at the door.”

Bofur’s breath catches. Fíli kisses his jaw, then his cheek.

Bofur tangles his hand more deeply into Fíli’s hair and kisses him as best he knows, long and thorough with his heart in his throat and his free hand at the small of Fíli’s back. Fíli is perfect, his mouth just open enough for their tongues to roll against each other gently, slowly relaxing open further as Bofur burrows closer to him. He makes a sound somewhere in the back of his throat. It vibrates noiselessly against Bofur’s own lips, shooting excitement down Bofur’s spine.

He pulls away to rest their foreheads together.

He is not prepared for Fíli’s impish smile, the quick kiss pressed against his nose. He is even less prepared for Fíli’s quick feet as he pulls Bofur away and towards the inn they’re staying in.

The lights are out, and Bofur is thankful – he’s sure they would otherwise break the spell, that Fíli wouldn’t be dragging him up the stairs by the hand. 

“I don’t know that we’ll have long,” Fíli begins, at the door to the room Bofur shares with Bombur and Bifur, suddenly hesitant.

“It’ll be long enough,” Bofur assures. Last he saw them, Bombur was asleep on the tavern’s table and Bifur was signing in Iglishmek to a friendly lamp; knowing them it’ll take them hours before they’re sober enough to walk.

He pulls the door shut behind Fíli and himself, and for a moment they are both silent. 

Then, Fíli reaches for the belt buckle holding his tunic in place. He pulls it open slowly, lets it fall to the floor and as it does, reaches for hem of his tunic. His eyes only leave Bofur’s as he pulls it over his head, and he goes right back to staring at him once it’s off, fingers pulling at the laces to his trousers.

A breathless noise punches its way out of Bofur’s throat, and before he quite understands what he’s doing, he’s on his knees on the floor, reverently untying Fíli’s boots and sliding them off his feet.

Fíli’s hands rest gently on his shoulders, supporting himself as Bofur pulls off his socks, and then, ever so slowly, his trousers. 

And there he stands, crown prince and heir to the throne of Erebor, skin entirely bared and Bofur kneeling in front of him, nose just barely inches from his strong thigh, dusted in hair as golden as that on his head. Bofur looks up, entirely forgetting he is on the floor before Fíli, forgetting he wants to kiss and stroke and caress and _fuck_ Fíli until he comes screaming, forgetting he is even there at all in his desire to simply see every part of Fíli’s body and memorize it to keep him company when he’s alone. 

Fíli is young and strong and golden all over, except at the apex of his thighs, where his cock, still mostly soft, is nestled amid dark, wiry curls. The dark hair snakes up just past his lower belly in a thin, frankly appetizing trail, though his chest is otherwise mostly hairless save a small patch of blonde at its center. His shoulders and arms make Bofur’s mouth water. 

Fluidly, Fíli slides down to the floor as well, hands never moving from Bofur’s shoulders, and they are kissing once again. At some point, Fíli knocks Bofur’s hat off his head, at some point their fingers tangle together in the attempt to divest him of his clothes.

At some point, they are both naked and on the bed.

Bofur could swear they haven’t stopped kissing even for a moment. He doesn’t know when this evening flipped over from a spot of fun on the road to where he can feel the bridge of his nose burn with unshed tears at how fucking beautiful Fíli is, spread out on the bed in the dim moonlight, but it happened, and he is here, fingers desperately skating over every inch of skin he can reach.

“Bofur,” Fíli sighs, hooking one of his legs up against Bofur’s hip so their cocks slide together clumsily. His hand settles on Bofur’s arse, squeezing, and Bofur catches just a hint of that wicked smile Fíli hides so well. 

“Mahal, if I had some oil,” Bofur stutters out, mindlessly grinding into Fíli, the drag of skin against skin harsh despite their sweat. 

“If you did?” Fíli asks, low.

They both pause movement as Bofur stares into Fíli’s blue-black eyes. “I…” Bofur begins, eyes slipping shut at a million dirty fantasies. “I’d slick you up and sit astride you until you fucked the seed right out of me.”

Fíli groans deep in his throat, twists so Bofur is the one on his back and Fíli’s above him. He leans down to bite at Bofur’s collarbone, and Bofur’s mouth has always had a bad habit of getting the best of him in the heat of the moment so it’s hardly his fault that he can’t remember half the images tripping off his tongue with a gorgeous princeling sucking on his throat.

“I’d lick you open,” he gasps, “lick you till you cried for me to fill you up already and then I’d do it, I promise, so long and good that you come twice. I’d have you on your knees first so you could hold on while I fucked you rough and hard and then with you all spent and tired on your back so I could see your face the second time, _Fíli_ …”

At last Fíli pulls away from the mark he’s worked into Bofur’s skin – branded by the line of Durin, Bofur thinks, somewhat hysterically. “I’d have my revenge,” Fíli says, hoarse and hungry. “Tie you to the bedposts and tease you for hours, fuck you slow as I could stand to till you can’t even beg for it anymore. Wind you up and not let you come until you couldn’t even help the noises you make, and then I’d fuck you hard and fast and watch you fall apart.”

Bofur whimpers, bucks up against Fíli, almost crying at how good he feels. It won’t take too much more for him to come at this rate, he knows. Not least when Fíli’s calloused hand snakes down and grabs his cock, stroking first gently, almost hesitantly.

He can’t help but push his hips up into that touch as well, begging wordlessly until Fíli tightens his grip and Bofur wails, letting himself be swept up by his body’s desperation.

“So close,” he gasps out, and “Mahal, Fíli”.

He comes on an exhale, striping seed up his belly and over Fíli’s hand, shaking and shuddering and hiding his face against Fíli’s arm. 

He has no words for a moment or two as he comes down, but Fíli does, wide-eyed, messy-haired Fíli, staring down at him. “Please,” he says, “Bofur, please, that was the best thing I’ve ever seen and if you don’t make me come soon – “

Blessedly, Bofur’s always been quick to recover, and he pushes Fíli back down on the bed in an instant before he slides his way down between Fíli’s legs and comes eye to eye with the royal endowment.

Giving Fíli a smirk, he slides two fingers in his mouth briefly, getting them as wet as he can before he sinks down unceremoniously on Fíli’s cock, tonguing the underside as he goes, relishing Fíli’s loud exhale. 

Fíli, at Bofur’s best guess, is a little shyer than he lets on. He clearly has a filthy mouth on him, but he’s not one to make a lot of noise otherwise. Bofur sees this as a challenge.

As he sucks dutifully, he slips a finger behind Fíli’s heavy bollocks, sliding over the space behind them and noting Fíli’s shudder. He circles Fíli’s entrance slowly, just one of his wet fingers, and slides it in at the same time as a downstroke of his mouth, distracting Fíli from the feeling even as his nose is buried in Fíli’s pubic hair.

Fíli is making small whimpering noises, harsh breaths and his hands are fisting in the sheets, he’s so good, so disciplined, not moving his hips at all though it must be killing him and Bofur’s grateful. 

As a reward, he crooks his finger in what ought to be the right direction, and Fíli’s whole body spasms. A cry tears his way out of his throat, and Bofur’s proud of himself. He slips his tongue into Fíli’s foreskin, sucks hard at the head as he aims for that spot again, takes a moment or two to find it, but when he does Fíli sobs, says, “Bofur, _Bofur_ , I – “

And then, gloriously, he spills, back arching, stomach tensing, a series of little “ah – ah – ah” noises making their way out his mouth.

Bofur’s so distracted watching him he nearly doesn’t manage to swallow it all.

When Fíli’s done, definitely done, Bofur moves back up the bed to gather him close. He’s still shaking a bit and he pushes himself into Bofur’s arms.

As they fall asleep as close together as they can possibly be, a thought tugs at the back of Bofur’s mind, but he’s too tired to allow it to articulate itself fully. 

Two rooms over, Kíli watches the moon move slowly across the night sky, trying to ignore the reflective shimmer in the necklace he wears. He doubts he will sleep tonight; he hasn’t properly in days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, massive apologies for the slowness. My only excuses are that I am a full-time college student with a part time job and volunteer responsibilities. I'm on break right now though, so there's hope.
> 
> So this is where this story takes some massive left turns, and the writer's block surrounding that is part of what kept me back for so long. I hope you like Fíli and didn't just wander aimlessly into some porn starring him...but yeah. As per usual, most canon will be summarily ignored for a while now, and I honestly currently don't have a single clue as to how and if I will be writing in Tauriel.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five Moments of Calm Before the Storm

**Five Moments of Calm Before the Storm**

**One**

Bofur wakes to sunlight slanting through the half-open curtains. Fíli, still wrapped tight in his arms, is nuzzling oddly at the pillow, his hair more golden than ever before in the morning sun. It’s also an unholy mess, tangled and twisted from sleep and Bofur’s fingers.

Now, Bofur’s fingers itch to grab his comb, to straighten it all out, to plait in Fíli’s signature braids. 

Fíli stretches slowly in the morning light. He rubs what feels like half his body against Bofur’s torso as he wakes up. “Mmm,” he mumbles against Bofur’s neck. “G’mornin’, _âzyungâl_.”

Bofur blushes to the very roots of his hair. “Morning,” he responds. 

Fíli props himself up on an elbow, beads jingling in his hair. His grin is very rakish for it being so early and all. “And what, Master Tinker, has you so bashful this fine morning?”

Between the rush of thoughts through his head as to what he could possibly even answer to that – _please don’t call me tinker you’re a prince don’t remind me, call me master all you like though, great merciful mahal you’re a morning person_ – Bofur barely even notices the one thought that edges its way past his defenses, tumbles from his lips and spreads itself out on the sheets like a shameless mistress.

“I want to braid your hair.”

Fíli pauses, his grin fading into shock. He makes no move away from Bofur, at least.

“I mean,” Bofur hastens to clarify, “if that’s something you want. If – when you’ve had time to think. Because I think I want, I mean I think about it a lot, and that doesn’t have to mean anything to you, but – “

Fíli’s fingers are rough over his lips when he moves his hand to stop the words. “Bofur, I’ve thought plenty. I – yes.”

When they kiss, Bofur relishes the soft tug of his hand through the knots in Fíli’s hair, the sharp cry Fíli makes against his lips. The way, when he apologizes for the pain, Fíli looks at him with more pupil than iris and says, “I like that.”

As it turns out he likes it even more with his mouth around Bofur’s cock, Bofur’s hands fisted in his hair. Bofur’s careful, so careful not to push and press, doesn’t mind when Fíli lets up for air and tries not to direct him at all, but he can’t help the way his hands card through Fíli’s hair, how they pull at his scalp. How he moans around Bofur and drives him senseless as he grinds his own arousal into the sheets.

How he’s desperate and wild-eyed with Bofur’s come dribbling from the corner of his mouth; how Bofur surges to his knees to kiss it from his lips; how he keens at the grip of Bofur’s right hand around his dick and his left fisting Fíli’s hair.

How Fíli yells when he comes, Bofur’s teeth at his collarbone.

How it takes them half an hour to rise from the bed afterwards.

And best of all, how Fíli melts, pliant, warm and trusting, when Bofur carefully combs through his hair and plaits it gently.

**Two**

Kíli gives up on sleep. He catnaps in the early afternoon, tosses and turns a few hours each night, chews valerian pilfered from Oin’s stash, but he never truly feels rested when he rises from his bed. 

There are dark circles under his eyes at all times, and he shrinks at shadows moving. His nose tingles and his eyes burn hot with potential tears at each carelessly, regally disparaging word Thorin throws his way. He knows he cannot go on like this.

Across the lake and through the woods, elves do not sleep with their eyes closed anyhow.

Not when the moon is high and the stars are glinting in Legolas’s eyes, reminding him that he is an enormous fool of an elf and he should never have let his dwarf leave. And all for the sake of not going against his monumentally insane father. 

He paces like a trapped animal, past Kíli’s cell, past the bath houses, past the throne room, and Tauriel watches him with tired eyes and little guidance.

Oin is the next to pull Kíli aside, speaking in unprecedentedly hushed tones. “Laddie, you’re running a fever,” he says, blunt and tone-deaf. “Ye haven’t been sleeping and you’re losing weight, and Thorin’s going to notice.”

“I can’t help it,” Kíli hisses back, right into the ear trumpet. “I’m trying to sleep, believe me.”

But he still can’t, not even when Oin gives him twice as much valerian as he had before, not even when he sews the curtains in his room shut to block out the incessant moon.

Legolas slips out through the gates a moment before they close. It may be the coward’s way, but it is better than no way at all.

Kíli tosses and turns, turns and tosses, and finally, blissfully, lets his eyes drift shut at last as Legolas’s nimble feet cross the Mirkwood border. 

**Three**

_I will not succumb_ , Dwalin thinks, iron in the face of his shabby, warped reflection in the stained mirror, the two minutes in the privy the only moment alone he’ll get today.

 _I will not succumb_ , he repeats, watching the bunch of Thorin’s shoulders as he attempts to decipher the long-vanished runes on the map. Longing to reach out, to let the touch of his hand remind Thorin to drop his shoulders, to exhale, to sit up straight.

 _I will not succumb_ , he remembers, even with Thorin’s hair pulled back as he uses Laketown’s makeshift smithy to force Bard’s meager weapons into something approaching useable form, even with Thorin’s neck bared, tendons strong and appealing, pale. Even with the cords of Thorin’s forearms straining, and oh, those forearms, pinning Dwalin to bed by his wrists, those forearms the only thing keeping Thorin propped up over him as the bed creaks under their lovemaking.

Dwalin blows the air out through his nose, once, twice, then a third time for good measure. _I will not succumb_. 

Thorin, oblivious, takes only a moment’s pause from his ceaseless preparation for the journey’s last leg. He stares up at the mountain, majestic, cold, terrifying, and his whole being becomes one thought.

_I will succumb._

**Four**

Where before Kíli could not sleep, he can now barely wake up, his body making up for lost time and keeping him captive. When he does wake, slowly, only between naps, he finds he breathes easier with Legolas’s pendant securely tucked under his shirt, bleeding warmth from his chest. 

He feels cold inside when he is awake, quietly cold to himself. He does not love his brother, his uncle or his calling any less for it, but a secret part of him wishes he could.

His mind is clearing, making room for decisions that will need to be made sooner or later. Decisions he would sooner not face.

Legolas skirts the borders of the lake, staying out of sight, waiting for the company of dwarves to move. He is not an idiot. He knows Thorin Oakenshield will not take kindly to yet another elf. He knows that he will be a hair’s breadth from being accused of seducing Thorin’s barely adult nephew if too much becomes revealed. He has no intention of allowing that to happen.

He has every intention of whacking Kíli over the head for not telling him of his relation to Thorin.

At night, he sits silent among the marshes, listening to the wind move through the reeds. Thinking of Kíli’s laughter, of his blunt fingers delicate through the strands of Legolas’s hair.

Eventually, Kíli’s body settles, though he does not entirely. He is always careful, careful with the chain around his neck, careful with the words always at the back of his tongue – _brother, brother, I found my One, I found him and it feels like everything they ever promised us_ – and careful with the memory of pale elvish skin moving against his. He guards his secrets greedily, keeps them back and hoards them, even as he protects himself from censure.

Privately, he vows that as soon as this business is over, he will return to Mirkwood.

It must be the Lonely Mountain, Legolas reasons, an easy leap at best given it rises unforgivingly into view with each dawn. He makes his way towards it slowly, knowing he cannot reach it before the dwarves. He’s impatient, certainly – he makes easy sport of the pack of orcs that has been trailing the dwarves for at least as long as he has now, picking them off from a distance, missing Tauriel’s steady hand at his side (longing to know what Kíli will be like in battle, his clever grin and his bow-rough fingers).

He thinks of things to tell Kíli – _when I was one hundred and fifty, I discovered what honey tastes like. I like to watch your face when you come, I take it as a challenge to make you keep your eyes open and really scream for me. When all of this is over, I want to take you hunting, to run together for sport_ – to pass the time, waiting and idling.

For all he is immortal yet, he pulls himself tight as his own bowstring with waiting.

**Five**

Fíli is _insatiable_. He gets this look – his eyes glaze over, his lips twitch into what must look like an arrogant smirk to anyone who hasn’t seen it on his lips after a round between the sheets, lazy and fucked out and joyous – and Bofur is just absolutely lost.

He knows he must be in over his head, knows that he’s living on borrowed time until Thorin decides he’s quite done dithering in Laketown and heads for the bloody mountain already, but that does not stop him at all. 

He traces patterns on Fíli’s skin in the soft afternoon light after a midday romp, the others all doing some sort of nondescript business in and around Laketown (possibly just clearing out because they’ve seen the looks passing between Fíli and Bofur and run for cover). He forgets what runes he is shaping on Fíli’s naked hip until Fíli shifts to look him in the eye and he hastily stops, pretends he was just tickling.

“Talk to me,” Fíli says, and Bofur has never felt the words dry up in his mouth so fast.

“I…” he trails off, unwilling to admit he’s starstruck, unable to finish a sentence sometimes when he looks at Fíli.

Fíli smirks. Alright, perhaps he is a self-righteous little prick sometimes, but Bofur knows that only makes it worse, because he’ll feel grounded for an instant in the knowledge Fíli isn’t perfect only to be swept away all over again.

“Alright, don’t talk to me,” Fíli says, and leans in for a kiss instead.

And Mahal, the boy can kiss. He’s slow and dirty in the lazy aftermath, reminding Bofur he’s young enough to go again should they choose, but tapers of slow and sweet with a series of light pecks.

He ends pressing a kiss to Bofur’s nose. 

Bofur laughs, sighs. “Fíli,” he says. 

“Hm?”

_You’re going to make me fall in love with you._

_I don’t know what I’ll do when this ends._

_I almost hope we don’t win the bloody mountain if only so I could keep you._

Bofur tugs at a lock of Fíli’s hair, grins at the growl that gets him. He turns, to settle on his back, letting Fíli cuddle up against him, hands automatically drifting to cup Fíli’s waist.

“So, talk to you, eh? Well, have I ever told you about how I met Dwalin?”

“Only a few dozen times.”

“Shush, you. That was the appropriate version. This one involves Nori, a set of handcuffs and a bobcat.”

“Handcuffs?”

“One-track mind, you. Yes, handcuffs.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> today's chapter brought to you by italics, run-on sentences and man angst. I'm excited for when Dís, or, heck, any female character shows up here. not that I have planned that far.
> 
> as usual, I apologize for the horrible delays between chapters. I just don't see myself reaching a point of updating regularly at the moment, unfortunately. but I have not given up! I will keep on with this story


	6. Slow Steps, Quickened Breaths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Mountain inhales as one, slowly, in the aftermath of the battle, prepared for everything. And yet, Kíli waits.

The dust is settling around the battlegrounds. The sun is sinking slowly, pierced by the Lonely Mountain and bleeding dusk at her footwells. 

Kíli sees nothing of it. 

He is deep within the confines of Erebor, cold, cloying air settling deep in his lungs as he watches Fíli struggle to breathe beside him. His own shattered kneecap feels as if it breaks anew with each inhale. 

Kíli will be fine. He knows this. Oin has told him. Sigrid, daughter of Bard with hair the color of flaxseed, unknowing subject of a hundred songs, has told him. A friendly, redheaded elf lady has told him. It took Kíli two whole days to realize that, with Fíli and Thorin still unconscious, he is the closest thing Erebor has to a prince, and that is why people are sending envoys and healers to ask him how his stupid kneecap is feeling.

Legolas has not made an appearance.

Not since he appeared over Kíli’s prostrate form, splayed beneath Bolg the Orc, gritting his teeth and preparing for the final blow. And there, suddenly, was Legolas, golden and shining. Legolas, using his bow as a shield, not even flinching when it snapped in two under the weight of Bolg’s weapon. He knows he saw Bolg fall to his death before he passed out, but he doesn’t know what happened to Legolas.

It takes days before Kíli can stand, shaking, dizzy, propped up on crutches. Still longer before he can make his first tentative steps from the sickroom. Fíli’s eyes have opened twice, briefly, just long enough to ask for water and fall closed again, but he is alive. It is enough.

-

Dwalin remembers Thorin when they were young. He was the only one among their training group who never broke his nose. The others called him pretty boy, princeling, Durin’s virgin. He was so pale, his eyes so big, the bones beneath his skin so elegantly crafted, how could they not?

Dwalin never called him names. Dwalin admired the long stretch of his unbroken, regal nose, the shadow of his collarbone, the stoicism in his eyes when half the bones in his right hand were broken under a heavy anvil and he did not complain, even once.

No, Dwalin thirsted. Thirsted to offer Thorin his own right hand, to feed him and to bathe him and to give him ease when his own could not. Dwalin longed to feel the roughness of Thorin’s deceptively clear, clean skin, to sink his fingers into Thorin’s hair, to tug and pull and take in ways no warrior should desire of his prince. 

Now Dwalin sits by Thorin’s side, day after day, night after night. His thirst has never been quenched, his longing never stayed, and his king has not awoken.

He knows Kíli sees him there, knows the lad has not offered comment or censure on his presence. He wonders what the lad thinks of him, there, and he knows Kíli does think something. He has been quiet in ways Dwalin does not expect of him since he awoke, shivering under the mountain.

While the lads were Dís’s boys to nurture and raise, and Thorin’s heirs to prepare, they were Dwalin’s to train in the art of war. And, being Thorin’s boys, Dwalin could not help but love them as his own, love them beyond the bounds of mere mentorship. It was not a hardship. They were easy to love, even as children, Fíli with his earnest, hopeful eyes always hoping to please, and Kíli’s endless, boundless curiosity and laughter. 

As they grew, Dwalin expected no less of them, and they fulfilled his every dream and then some. They were perhaps the finest warriors he’d ever trained, having all their uncle’s discipline and morality and their mother’s warmth. And, Dwalin liked to think, his own courage in the face of certain defeat.

For all that, though, Kíli has never been as quiet as he is now, lying day by day in his sickbed, carefully making his first steps on his healing leg, watching his brother sleep. Dwalin worries for him, even as his heart aches for his king to awaken.

-

“I do not want to be King under the Mountain,” Kíli whispers one night, when even the healers have left and it is only him and Dwalin.

Dwalin raises his head from where it had drooped to his chest, eyes sliding closed.

“I do not want it. It was never my burden to bear.” There is a deep dread in Kíli’s voice, one that Dwalin had not thought to listen for until he heard it. 

“You are a son of Durin,” Dwalin says, helplessly. “You are born to bear many things.”

Kíli sighs, shifts under his sheets. “I know. What I mean to say is, I would not be King, I would have my brother and my uncle back, for they are meant for such a task. I will suit it very ill indeed, and I do not want it.”

“What would you do then, little one? You cannot leave your mountain so soon after having reclaimed it.”

When Dwalin looks over, to see why Kíli is taking so long to answer, he is taken aback at the tears trailing down the boy’s cheeks. “I wish I could,” he says.

-

Bofur shuns the sickroom. It is his own cowardice, he knows, that keeps him away, but he wants nothing less than to see Fíli of the lion’s mane lying cold and unmoving. He cleans out the mines instead, saying to any who asks that he is preparing the kingdom for when its king awakens, and they should do the same.

Few answer with the same optimism.

Bombur has found a kitchen, where he is happiest, and does little more than shake his head at his silly younger brother, walking in covered from head to toe in dragon shit and soot every night. 

It is a question of luck, Bofur thinks, that no one knew of him and Fíli. He could not bear their sympathy.

It is a month, an entire month, before this state of affairs is changed.

Little news from the sickroom trickles out, and even less reaches Bofur in his mines. Dain, acting as temporary ruler, knows who yet breathes, and has announced that Kíli will make a full recovery, but he does not share his further knowledge with his people. No news, he says, is better, at least for now. It is one of his few wise moments; as yet, no son of Durin is fit to act as regent anyhow.

But a month is a long time, and dwarvish bone is as strong as iron ore, so they say. A month is long enough for a shattered knee to knit together, for a brave, strong boy to pull himself to his feet. 

“You have not been to see my brother,” Kíli says.

Bofur starts. He is clearing out the eastern tunnels, slowly, day by day, and while there are others helping him (he does not think on how they call him “chief” and heed his orders), by afternoon, he likes to find a solitary offshoot and be by himself a while. He did not expect to hear another voice before the evening bells for supper rang.

“My prince,” he says. “You are awake.”

Kíli rolls his eyes. “I’ve been awake for ages. I’m also standing, and breathing, and so are you, yet you have not been to see my brother.”

“I…” Bofur starts, then stops, takes off his hat and fiddles with it. “Is he…awake?”

“Why should it matter? Does he not deserve a visit regardless?” Kíli’s voice is casual, but the lines around his mouth are becoming strained, and Bofur notes that he is leaning heavily on his crutch.

Bofur wilts like a piece of gold over a fire. “Yes,” he says. “Of course he does.”

Kíli stares at him, expectant.

“I could not bear it,” Bofur says. “I could not bear to come so far and to be told I may not see him, or worse, to see him still and unmoving and…” he does not finish the thought, only remembers the terror clutching in his chest when he saw Fíli’s golden head lying on the ice at the top of the mountain, the breath rushing from his lungs when he saw the orkish metal gleaming, stuck fast in Fíli’s stomach.

He knew then what he had thought might be true, had not dared hope could be. 

He knew that Fíli was his One.

“He is awake,” Kíli says. “Not all the time, and he cannot yet stand, but he is awake, and I am told his chances improve every day.”

The air rushes out of Bofur’s lungs and he nearly falls to the ground in relief.

“Now come and see him,” Kíli says. “Please.”

Bofur scrubs the soot and ash from his face and hands as best he can, and then half- carries Kíli back the infirmary.

Fíli is awake when he arrives. 

He is pale and thinner than he ought to be, and the bandage wrapped around his waist stands out starkly against his skin, but he is alive and his eyes are open, and Bofur has to close his own against the sudden rush of feeling returning to his body, a warmth filling him where none had been before, an absence he had not known could be filled.

“Oh,” Fíli gasps.

Their eyes meet and in that second, Bofur knows that Fíli knows, that he feels the same, and that he will never remember how his feet found their way to Fíli’s bedside or how his mouth found its way to Fíli’s own, only that they are kissing with increasing passion, that Fíli has knocked his hat off his head and has threaded his fingers through Bofur’s hair, and that they are being suddenly and vigorously tutted by Oin.

“Why did you stay away so long?” Fíli asks, suddenly shy.

“I didn’t…I didn’t know if I could…”

“You can,” Fíli says. “You know – you must know – “

“I know,” Bofur rushes to assure him, “I think I always have.”

A slow smile spreads to Fíli’s face. “You idiot,” he says.

“Yes,” Bofur says unreservedly. “Your idiot.”

-

Legolas has gone North. He has found a man who calls himself Strider, has readily guessed his true origins – had done so, in fact, as soon as Thranduil told him the man’s father was called Arathorn. Men are many things, creative in naming their offspring, they are not.

He had tried Erebor first, of course. Tried many times, only to be turned away by suspicious dwarves and vague responses. Elves travel fast, after all, and the North is not far away.

Still, he cannot help but pine, and Strider cannot help but notice. “Perhaps it is time you returned,” he says one evening over a campfire. “I believe you have unfinished business in the south, and men of my blood can wait a long time for an elf with urgent news.”

Really, Strider is not a subtle man.

Legolas rides south at dawn. 

-

Erebor’s gates are open when he arrives this time, the valley is no longer marred by corpses and the sun is setting. 

“I am come to see Kíli,” Legolas tells the guard at the front gate, a tad helplessly. Kíli has no moniker such as ‘Greenleaf’ or ‘Oakenshield’; he is a son of Durin and that is all the identification he needs, apparently.

“Oh aye?” the dwarf says. His hair is practically in Legolas’s nose, an odd, three-peaked hairstyle that does little more than confuse and irritate Legolas. He will have to learn more about these dwarven braids.

The dwarf leans on his axe, pointy end decidedly in Legolas’s direction. “Most o’ you envoy folks come bearing gifts, or with news for the whole mountain, or a proposition for Dain. What’s little Kíli got to offer you?”

Legolas bristles. “I was under the impression he is fully grown.”

The dwarf laughs. “Aye, though not by a lot. Really, what is you business here? I hold you know ill will, but it’s in me job description to ask.”

“I am Legolas, son of Thranduil,” Legolas says after a moment of consideration as to what the best tactic to get into the mountain might be. “I would like to improve relations between our houses.”

“Oh are ye?” The dwarf grins disconcertingly. “Very well then, son of Thranduil, today might be yer lucky day.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...it's been a long time. Coming to you live from the universe where I have a bachelor's degree and a relationship and shit. Clearly, for the purposes of this fic, BoFA did not happen the same way.


	7. Resolutions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few things are resolved. A few are not.

It is a very lucky day. At last, Kíli can leave the sickroom. He can walk – he still has a walking stick, for colder days, and sometimes he needs to pause for breath, but Oin assures him even that will fade. Today, he is finally moving in to the royal quarters. 

Dori has taken up the fine position of master of all things decorative and seemly, and he has done a wonderful job indeed. Dori may be an exceptionally fussy dwarf, to the point of irritation, but he is also observant, and while the openly visible royal rooms are correctly, properly, heinously fancy, in refurbishing their individual rooms he had made sure to give them something of the homey, rustic feel of Ered Luin.

He has only just settled down into the pile of cushions on the bed when there is a knock on the door. He groans, raising himself to his feet slowly and padding to the door. 

He is not prepared for what awaits him on the other side. Nori, for one, with some intricately prepared speech Kíli hears nothing of, because behind him is Legolas, tall and golden as ever.

“Come in,” he says.

Nori says something about a guard or a council or maybe both. Kíli shuts the door in his face.

Legolas’s mouth is on his before the lock clicks into place.

“We should talk,” Kíli says, desperately, minutes later against Legolas’s collarbone.

“Yes,” says Legolas, pulling at Kíli’s belt. “Talk.”  


They do not talk.

Well, at some point when they’re both naked and touching each other and rubbing so close Kíli nearly embarrasses himself all over Legolas’s smooth belly, Legolas says “I need you to fuck me.”

Kíli has to stand back and take a few long, deep breaths.

“I…my knee,” he says, only now remembering there are other parts of his body.

“Is it…” Legolas can’t quite seem to finish the question, can’t parse how close they came to losing each other.

Kíli smiles. “I’ll be fine. It’s just sensitive now. You could…you could ride me?”

Legolas groans. His pupils dilate. His gorgeous, gorgeous prick twitches and Kíli’s mouth waters.

It really does not take long for Legolas to have manhandled Kíli onto his back on the bed. Kíli clumsily digs the oil from its haphazard hiding place between the cushions – so what if he was planning on fingering himself and thinking of Legolas? It’s been weeks since he’s been alone.

He slicks his fingers and, slowly, ever so slowly, presses the first into Legolas.

Legolas keens.

Kíli really is not going to last long.

By the time he has Legolas fucking himself on three of his fingers, the elf is babbling and moaning like a prize whore. “Thought I’d lost you, couldn’t bear to come back, you stupid, stupid _mortal_ oh valar yes right there.”

Kíli knows he must look a sight, hair wild around and eyes no less than feral when he pulls his fingers out and says “now.”

Legolas sinks down on his cock much too quickly. Kíli moans and has to bite into his lip to hold on. Legolas gasps and tenses, and stays still for far too long for it to have been comfortable.

He finally begins to move, and it’s like he’s a ragdoll, bending forwards at the waist, arms useless to hold him up completely, pressed tight against Kíli. “You’re so…thick…” he gasps out, like he was torn directly from Kíli’s dirtiest fantasies.

Kíli can do nothing but moan as Legolas fucks himself.

He grabs for Legolas’s cock almost as an afterthought, but then it becomes central. He must make Legolas come first. 

It doesn’t take much. Legolas bursts, warm like mead, all over Kíli’s stomach, and Kíli immediately gives it up. He screams as he comes, holding Legolas’s hips tight.

It takes a full five minutes before Legolas catches his breath enough pull himself off Kíli and collapse next to him.

“I love you,” Kíli says, already half asleep. “Next time I’ll suck you.”

“I love you,” Legolas returns, smiling at his dwarf. His fingers rest on his necklace, still around Kíli’s neck. That’s how they fall asleep.

-

Nori is incredibly glad he didn’t cause a commotion when Kíli slammed the door in his face and insist on royal guards. They’d have gotten an earful. As such, his own ears are bright red from listening in to what’s happening behind that door he’s guarding, and he’s a hard dwarf to embarrass.

Oín had asked, just the company of course, when Kíli had still been unconscious. Asked about the necklace, that is, the ivy leaf on its delicate chain, the kind rarely seen among their people. No one had known anything about it. No one had mentioned that it looks elvish. Everyone had instinctively known that outsiders could never know.

Nori does wonder why it is that Kíli is fucking an elf princeling, of course, but he’s pretty sure there can only be one answer. He saw the look in Kíli’s eyes when he saw Legolas, that wounded hope. He heard the way they screamed for each other. They must be Ones.

Nori sighs, thinks of his own One, a lovely lass back in Ered Luin, who would hear nothing of him until he got himself on the straight and narrow. He bloody well hopes this whole quest will be worth it.

His traitorous heart remembers the kiss she gave him before he left, and he knows it will be.

-

Thorin wakes up in increments. It is only the third time he wakes up that he can open his eyes, push himself upright and grit his teeth against the dizziness.

“Careful,” a voice rumbles beside him, rough with sleep itself.

Thorin turns his head, slowly. “Dwalin?” he croaks.

“Aye,” Dwalin says. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to see you.”

Dwalin smiles, slowly, crookedly, and a burst of warmth sparks inside Thorin and spreads out across his entire body. He knows.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks. 

Dwalin shrugs. “Wouldn’t have pulled your head out your arse any sooner. You had to know yourself.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I love you.” Dwalin replies. He doesn’t need apologies, only Thorin.

“Kiss me?” Thorin asks, almost shy.

Dwalin’s fingers are rough against his cheek and Thorin’s heart stutters when Dwalin leans forward to kiss him. Their lips brush, dry and soft, and Thorin’s arm snakes out to pull him closer.

They kiss like dwarflings hiding from their parents, nervous and messy. They kiss until Dwalin knows the taste of Thorin’s mouth by heart. They kiss until Thorin tires again, and then he sleeps with his head resting against Dwalin’s chest.

It’s the happiest Dwalin’s ever been in his life.

-

The group from Ered Luin arrives the next day. Fíli greets them at the gates, leaning heavily against Bofur.

Dís pulls him into her arms tightly. “I was so worried for you,” she sighs. “Where’s Kíli? Where’s Thorin?”

“They’ll be fine,” Fíli assures, still pressed against her shoulder. “Kíli’s out of sickbay, he’s…I don’t know where he is right now, but he’s fine. Thorin woke up yesterday.”

The tension drains from Dís like air out of sails and she smiles. “Well, then. I think you ought to introduce me to your friend here.”

“You remember Bofur,” Fíli says.

“I do,” Dís replies. “I don’t remember him holding you hand.”

Fíli’s smile is like the rising sun, like his face when he first saw his baby brother. “Bofur’s my One.”

Bofur can’t help grinning, either, kneading his hat nervously.

“Welcome to the family,” Dís says. 

-

Kíli sleeps for fourteen hours. 

He wakes slowly, warm, and finds himself wrapped in his One. He thinks his heart may pound out of his chest.

Legolas presses a soft kiss to his cheek.

“D’you really love me?” Kíli asks.

Legolas smiles. “Aye.”

“I hardly know you,” Kíli says. “I…but…it’s just there.”

“We’ll know each other,” Legolas says. “We have nothing but time.”

Kíli’s stomach growls. “Yes,” he says. “And now, I think it’s breakfast time.”

He is dressed and at the door before he realizes that no one knows about Legolas. “Oh, Mahal,” he says and stops.

At Legolas’s quizzical expression, he says, “What do I tell people? No one knows about us.”

Legolas makes a face that can only mean he’s remembering his own father, silent and disappointed at best.

Kíli grimaces. “I suppose we’d best start. I’ll get us some food and find Fíli. He’ll be nice about it.”

-

Bilbo has taken a very long time to understand Dwarven courting. Hobbits have it easier; they bear the mark of their One printed on their skin.

Of course, Bilbo doesn’t have it easier, because her One’s name is printed in Dwarven runes she can’t read. Not only that, but careful questioning of Balin has revealed that dwarves can have any number of names.

Still, she’d like to think she’s less oblivious than some dwarves. The line of Durin in particular seems violently obtuse when it comes to finding their Ones.

In the end, she decides there is only one path that makes sense. She knocks gently on Balin’s door, and when he lets her in, she says, “I need to show you something.”

Before he can protest, she strips off her layers and pulls her hair to the side, giving him access to the names printed on her lower back. “This is how hobbits find their Ones,” she says. “I can’t read it. I just…I need to know before I leave.”

Balin takes a moment for his jaw to return to its original place, and when he finally has seen past the smooth skin of her back and registered the names neatly marked into her skin, he growls. 

“You don’t need to go home,” he says. “That’s my name. The first one that is.”

Bilbo spins around, and the suspicion that had taken root in her belly is warmly satisfied. Heedless of her bare breasts, she wraps her arms around his neck. “Well, then,” she says, “what are you going to do about it?”

As it turns out, Balin is a very accomplished lover, and fully capable of holding a hobbit up against the wall for any amount of time.

Later, satisfied and very giggly, they turn to discovering who their third might be.

-

Late night, alone in a dark corridor, Nori finally sees his One again. She pushes her hood off her head, wraps his arm around his waist. “I’m glad you’re still alive,” she says, pressing a light kiss to his nose.

“High praise from such a lady as yourself,” he replies. “Did your journey pass well?”

“Well enough,” she says, stealing a kiss from his mouth.

“Good,” he says, and loses himself in kissing her for a while.

“I want to do right by you,” he says, eventually, once he’s caught his breath.

“How unlike you,” she smirks.

“Very funny. I just…” he sighs. “I’d like to invite you in for a cup of tea and drink it from your navel. I’d like to spread you out and make you forget you were every with another dwarf.”

“I’m not opposed,” she says, and just for a moment, his heart beats triple-time in self-satisfaction.

“But it seems, I dunno, wrong. I need to treat you right. Court you proper. Make you gifts. Marry you.”

Dís smiles. “You’re sweet, my One. I’ll marry you any time you see fit, my love.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies as ever for the delay. At this point you can kind of just take it as a given that I'm very sorry I'm so bad at updating.
> 
> A million thousand thanks to everyone who has read this story despite the dreaded WIP status, has left comments and kudos. You guys are the best, and I love every response I get to this story. It really does have a special place in my heart even if I rarely get to writing.


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